


Delayed

by Gray Shadows (the_afterlight)



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Alien Pornography, Comfortable Friendships, Flight Delays, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hotels, Travel Delays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 19:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8929198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_afterlight/pseuds/Gray%20Shadows
Summary: When their out-going gate is delayed, Nita and Ronan spend the first night of their spring break vacation hanging out in the VIP Short-Term Stay Facility at the Crossings.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bienenalster (pinkspider)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkspider/gifts).



Ronan fiddled at the door with one hand, phone held to his ear with the other. "Thanks again, Sker', for arranging the room for us." Following Nita into the hotel room -- more accurately, a room in the Crossings VIP Short-Term Stay Facility -- he looked around, surprised at how Earth-like the room was. It wouldn't have been out-of-place in any of the hotels he'd been in. 

" _I'm sorry I couldn't do more!_ " Sker'ret said, over the open line.

"Sker', we don't blame you for solar flares _three systems away_ interfering with our transit. This stuff happens on holiday, it's fine."

" _Well, if you're sure... Sleep well! I'll let you know when the transit's ready._ "

Ronan grinned. "Thanks, Sker'. We'll see you in the morning." 

As he flicked off his phone, Nita flopped down on the bed and moaned. "Uuuuuuuugh, travel delays are the _worst_. It's so much easier when we can just, like, 'Hi, I'm on errantry,' and get a priority transport."

"Could be worse." Ronan sat down in one of the wheeled chairs by the desk and spun around lazily. "You could _not_ be Queen of Earth, and we could be stuck in one of the regular lounges instead of the best human-appropriate hotel room the Crossings has on offer. Really, we could spend the whole week here instead of whatever backwater planet you picked, and I'd be happy." He stopped his spin, ignoring Nita's squawk of indignation at the 'Queen of Earth' comment, and grinned at her. "Although I have to wonder what ideas Sker's got about you and I. One bed? Think Kit'll be jealous?"

"Of who?" Nita asked, laughing. "Me, or you?" She propped herself up on her elbows so she could actually look at Ronan. "Nah, it's... whatever. Kit and I, it's... It's all fine." She waved her hands vaguely. "I mean, assuming that _you're_ okay with sharing?"

"What?" Ronan grinned at Nita and chuckled. "The bed, or you?" His laughter redoubled as Nita squawked again and flailed, falling back onto the bed. "No, no," he continued, still chuckling. "It's good. I am more than capable of behaving myself. Unless you want to ask Sker' about a different room?"

Nita shook her head. "I really don't think I want to _explain_ it. I mean, do you want to try to get into the details of our particular societies' social norms around when it is and is not appropriate to share beds?" She propped herself up on her shoulders again. "Or do you want to order room service, watch some horrible vid from some planet we've never heard of, and get a good night's sleep before our gate tomorrow?"

On the one hand, Ronan mused, Sker'ret's reaction could be hilarious, but on the other, there would be _so many questions_. "Let's go with door number two," he said, turning around to tap at the desk display until the room service menu popped up. "But I'm picking the movie. Last time, you made me watch _Star Wars_. And not even the good _Star Wars_!"

"Fiiiiine." Nita pushed herself off of the bed and stood behind Ronan, watching the screen as it scrolled through their options. "Oh, hey, there," she said, pointing at the glowing text; it obligingly stopped its scroll and highlighted the relevant menu items. "Blue potato French fries. Someone's shipping in the fancy stuff. We'll have to send a picture to Kit." She tapped again, adding two portions of the fries to their order.

"Only you would order chips when you're on another planet," Ronan teased, but before Nita could flip away, he reached out and added a third portion. "Think they've got any curry sauce?" he mused, and Nita flipped the screen to the side, bringing up a list of available condiments.

Eventually, with the food ordered and on its way, Nita and Ronan settled themselves on their respective sides of the admittedly enormous bed. "So why _isn't_ Kit coming with you, anyway?" Ronan asked. "I forgot to ask, but I kind of expected you two would be joined at the hip for holidays from now on."

Nita made a face as she raised a hand, calling up the holographic controls for the display screen. "Different spring breaks," she explained. "Mine's this week, his is next week. We're meeting up here over the weekend so we've got a little time together. I think he's planning to head out to Demisiv to meet up with Filif for a few days, and then he and Darryl are going to meet up and hit some beach planet."

"So you asked me along?" Ronan gave Nita a side-eyed look. It had been hard to pass up the invitation -- it wasn't every day a friend offered him an expenses-paid trip off-planet -- but he'd definitely been curious why him, of all people. "Not, I don't know, your sister, or Carmela, or..."

Nita rolled her eyes, flipping through the menus to the entertainment videos before 'handing' the holograph to Ronan. "Well, Dairine's busy on Wellakh anyway, but I actually wanted to spend time with you." She shrugged. "You and Kit spend a lot of time together, when you can, but we haven't had a lot of that when the world isn't on fire."

"Or the universe," Ronan agreed.

"Or the universe. So yeah, I thought it'd be fun to invite you." She poked Ronan's shoulder. "Are you saying you _don't_ want to spend a week relaxing in a rustic alien mountain cabin with absolutely nothing to worry about other than which of us is making breakfast in the morning?"

Ronan stopped scrolling, picking out a vid from a planet he was pretty sure he'd heard Carmela mention before. "Well, when you put it that way... I promise not to burn the eggs." He flicked the vid up to the ceiling, where it enlarged, and as the vid started, sound began to play from speakers set, invisibly, somewhere in the walls. 

"What did you pick?" Nita asked, as the opening credits began to roll.

"Something I heard Carmela mention once," he explained. "I figured she'd be the one who'd know about off-planet media. Something about, uh. Grenfelzing?"

Nita blinked once, twice. On the display, two people of a species she didn't immediately recognise were doing something she wasn't entirely sure she was supposed to be seeing. "... It's like emmfozzing," she remembered aloud, "but with chocolate."

"Ah." Ronan was staring at the screen, eyes widening. "What exactly is emmfozzing?"

"Apparently," Nita said, "that." She tilted her head, trying to follow what was happening with the two bodies. "I wonder what their joints are like? Not a lot of vertebrate species can move like that."

Ronan snorted. "Not a lot of _physically incarnate_ species can move like that." He raised a hand and the vid paused. "Uh, something else?"

"Gee." Nita bumped his shoulder. "And just when it was getting educational."

"So you want to-"

"Powers, yes, Ronan, something else! I love you, but the list of people with whom I want to watch alien porn is currently zero people long." She reached out and flicked the screen controls away from Ronan, sending away the vid and moving back to the menu. "Oh, hey, look, something _nice and safe_." Nita grinned and enlarged the menu, making it easier for both of them to see it. "Bootleg, three-d, poorly dubbed Pixar films. Want to mock the translation?"

" _Brave_?" Ronan asked, in reply. "Or _Finding Nemo_?"

By the time they reached the closing narration ("Some of them believe our luck. No goal, however, is known. But fate. Strong people seeking jobs, please refer to this." Ronan was curious whether the person responsible for the translation had actually _heard_ English before; Nita was convinced they hadn't.), their food was gone and they'd laughed themselves to exhaustion. "You know," Ronan said, letting himself relax into the bed. "Thank you for inviting me. It is nice to get away from... everything. For a little while, at least."

"No problem," Nita assured him. "Honestly, it's probably more fun than doing this with Kit. Less... Fewer levels to everything, I guess? We're at a phase where..." She winced. "Sorry, don't want to unload on you."

"Nah, it's okay. Another weird phase?"

"Not even really weird. Just, the distance thing is putting a strain on things a little, more than we hoped although not as much as we'd _worried_ , so we're kinda stuck figuring out how we are around each other again." Nita nudged Ronan's shoulder with her own. "So it's nice just to hang out with a _friend_. We'll figure it out, we always do, but it's nice to have a vacation where I'm not second-guessing the way I treat him every five minutes."

Ronan nodded slowly. "Happy to be of service," he said, quirking a smile at her. "It's good to be wanted."

Nita snorted and poked him in the shoulder. "Don't get too smart," she warned, "or I'll turn you into a soggy beermat again."

"Nita," Ronan said, mock-seriously. "That stopped being threatening roughly five minutes after I threw a _flaming spear_ through the eye of _fecking Balor_." He rolled his shoulders out against the bed, snuggling against the covers. "One more? Or d'you want to head to bed?"

Nita grabbed the last fry out of the serving bowl and popped it into her mouth. "Bed, I think," she said, standing up and grabbing her suitcase. "I hope you don't mind if I sleep naked," she threw over her shoulder as she headed into the bathroom. 

As she closed the door behind her, Ronan squawked, on a slight delay as he processed what she'd said. Grinning to herself as she pulled her pyjamas from her bag, she whispered, "Gotcha."

**Author's Note:**

> Google Translate has _really_ improved itself -- I had to send that line from _Brave_ through something like twelve languages (including Icelandic, Hmong, Latin, Filipino, Mongolian, Persian, and Japanese) to get something appropriately garbled.


End file.
